Up-and-coming British Singer-Songwriter Maya Delilah popped the champagne cork on her much-anticipated album, The Long Way Round, on March 28, 2025.
In love with music from a young age, Delilah was already making a big impression at fifteen years old as a finalist in The Mayor of London’s Gigs Big Busk, An event that is considered the UK’s biggest annual street music competition; she would soon attend the BRIT School (a highly regarded performing and creative arts school), released two EPs independently (2020’s Oh Boy and 2021’s It’s Not Me, It’s You) before signing on with Blue Note Records in 2022. A steady progression forward, her intriguing mix of Jazz, Soul, and Pop has amassed her hundreds of thousands of streams, making the excitement surrounding The Long Way Round even more pronounced.
With production from Peter Miles, Josh Grant, Doug Schadt, Seth Tackaberry, Aquilo’s Ben Fletcher and Tom Higham, and collaborators including Samm Henshaw, Grace Lightman, members of FIZZ, Organist Cory Henry, and Drummer Aaron Sterling (John Mayer, Taylor Swift), The Long Way Round contains twelve memorable tracks. Full of rich texture, each takes you on a tumultuous emotional journey down the vertiginous waterfalls of heartbreak into the pool of vulnerability and fortitude.
Some might ask what makes Maya Delilah stand out from the gush of the overflow of musicians who grip the masses with songs of heartbreak woes. Answering that question, Delilah methodically blends different genres of music in a test tube with an unerring eye and shakes it up with her unique rhythmic style. Her passion and featherweight vocals embody the emotions with the vividness of a kaleidoscope in motion. Delilah’s whispery and feather-light vocals, as are her guitar string melodic combinations, are unmistakable.
Altogether, this debut full-length record is a compilation of personal reflections that jut up to the surface of cerebral consciousness with tales of the stabbing pain of heartbreak and the comeback energy of the emergent phoenix from the flames of hellfire. As the album title implies, the pathway to resilience is not always straightforward, but occasionally, it may veer off course towards the final destination.
As you gently examine each track and explore its musical nuances as if observing the intricate arrangements of the petals of a rose, one can detect the passion that bursts forth from each song. The rhythms are varied in texture, as are the emotional motifs, but there are certainly a few standouts that zoom into focus.
For example, “My Balloon” has an ethereal quality. Sung softly as a gentle breeze and slow in tempo, the guitar melody evokes a carefree and daydreamy state of mind. Delilah holds those notes at the end of the verses and slowly exhales them as they rise to the sky as if with helium. Quite beautiful, they sail along the sky-blue ocean polka dotted by puffy clouds, propelled into motion with the heat of the sun’s rays.
Then, “Look At the State of Me Now” is reminiscent of a dying rose in the hands of a distraught lover. Here, you can feel the erratic heartbeat of the rose languishing in the rhythm of the music and the sorrow of loss bubbling up to the surface with the mesmerizing and soulful vocals. A frigid breeze carries the words along, and the verse, “Somehow I fell for your spell, I traded my love for some hell, Somehow I wish you well,” is poignant, resonating with anyone who has experienced the shattering of a love relationship with the hammer of toxicity.
Meanwhile, the track “Did I Dream It All” questions the aftermath of a breakup. It seems it was merely a dream and not a reality-based experience. With a soulful guitar introduction, you are invited in as the vocals intensify in pitch, and the bluesy soul washes over like the ebb and flow of the tides. Leading us to “Begin Again,” which poignantly examines the courage to walk through the fire and emerge reborn as a phoenix.
The passion and verve that went into creating The Long Way Round are felt. Maya Delilah’s smooth and alluring vocal tones are like lyrical vine tendrils reaching deep within the soul and wrapping themselves around its central core with the fluid depths of empathy. Authentic and emotional, Cryptic Rock gives The Long Way Round 5 out of 5 stars.
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